Pages

June 5, 2005

Christian Vandals

Every morning on my way to work, I see a ton of cars decorated with Jesus fish, pro-Bush stickers, and "God bless our troops" ribbons. It has gotten to the point where cars without any of these things stand out as unusual. Whenever I see such a car, I experience a brief flash of disgust. My favorite sticker by far is the small black square with the large "W" in the middle with "The President" underneath it in small letters. It is not enough for these people to be idiots - they must advertise it!

Naturally, I have considered adding a Darwin fish, one of their many variations, or an interesting bumper sticker to my car (for many great options, check out Evolve FISH). However, I am rather confident that such an act would result in vandalism to my car. Vandalism by Christians, of course.

During the last election, a co-worker put a Kerry/Edwards sticker on his car. Within a fairly short period of time, he came out to the parking lot to discover that someone had tried to remove the sticker and when unable to do so had settled for severely damaging his rear bumper. I wanted to believe that this was an isolated incident, but I heard of several similar ones.

What goes on in the mind of a Christian that allows him/her to damage someone's car because he/she disapproves of a sticker or decal? Are there roving gangs of Christian teenagers running wild in the streets, or are adults in my community capable of this? Are they merely spoiled children who believe that they have the right to lash out at anything that upsets them? Would it ever occur to them that I would love to vandalize their cars but refrain from doing so because I respect their right to free expression and am mature enough to tolerate (or even welcome) diverse viewpoints?